Aug 24, 2010

I must admit, I've never encountered a creeper in the workplace until now. I've known them to exist, but luckily never had to deal with one. You know, the person that makes you feel extremely awkward, that's undressing you with their eyes, making random conversation with you, being overly friendly to you opposed to other employees... Yea, that person!

Well, at my job we have a big finance team that consists of several small department, like payroll, accounts receivable, billing, etc. The departments obviously sit together, and the company has recently gone through some changes- merging with another company, integrating the two companies, bringing in new employees from the other location... Blah, blah, blah. Well, a lot of individuals on the finance team at the other location were offered positions within the new company and turned them down, with the exception of one person. THE CREEPER!

I got a weird vibe from him the very first time we had a finance team meeting, and he's been weird ever since. Let's start with the first encounter... "The waist side hello"- you know, when someone tries to get your attention by gently touching your waist. Usually done by someone that you know, or are close with. That wasn't the case. Instance #2... "The shoe compliment"- yes, he complimented me on my shoes and instantly my brain tracked back to that moment in Legally Blonde when Elle tapped her foot at the gay witness at the water fountain. Same thing went off in my head, until I overheard him talking about his children. Instance #3... "The i-don't-have-anything-else-to-say conversation" so he'll always make a point to ask me about my weekend. On top of that he pulled the race card on more than one occassion...

In so many words, he tells me that we're almost matching one day (when clearly, we weren't even remotely matching). Then he starts up this weird convo about how he's wearing the colors of his "homeland" (New Orleans clearly is a hometown, not a homeland!). He goes on to say that he shuld have been black; black men have it easier when it comes to going bald. If you didn't know by now, GAB is black, African American. Why would you make a comment like that?

Icing on the cake, this douche lord puts his arm up next to mine, starts talking about how he was upset that it rained this past weekend cause he couldn't lay in the sun... Followed by "I have some competition. I'm almost there", in reference to my complexion! OMG!

So now I'm to the point when I want to report him, at least to my manager. I'm sure she'll direct me to HR, but how- being the only black person on the finance team- can you "anonymously" file a complaint? Of course their going to use whatever I tell them in their case against him, and it will no longer be "anonymous"...

GAB needs major help! Anyone ever had to deal with this? How did you handle it?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

13
comments:

Eww. I hate creepy dudes. We had one at my old job who was the type of guy (old guy, too) who would walk behind your desk and rub your shoulders while he talked to you. UBER-CREEPY! Ugh. I still get the willies when I think about it!

That's a difficult position to be in. Yes, they'll definitely send you to HR, but if they stuck to the inapprpriate behavior, the race thing wouldn't even have to come up and you could remain anonymous.

GAB, I know this is completely late, but I have the same situation. I have a work creeper and he is beyond creeper. He has conversations over the wall of the cubicle and it is one of those high-walled cubicles. He lingers and gets in my personal space and every time he walks past my cubicle he always goes out of his way to see what I am doing but doesn't do that to anyone else. I went to my immediate boss and he said "oh that's just (So-and-so)" so I went to HR and they said that he was just really passionate about his job and just wanted to get to know people. What he really does is try to get to know the black women only and is always hovering over them and looking at their chests. Nothing happened for me so good luck to you. The problem I face is that all the black people at my job are in subservient positions except 2 of them. My goal is to get my MBA and get out of here!

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.